Doodle-ee-doo: Puppet Pals

Like most people who have easy access to the internet, I am guilty of spending far too much time watching silly YouTube videos. First I'm just watching the latest video that my brother-in-law made. Then--Oh hey! Someone made a song out that one Lord of the Rings line about potatoes! Oh look! Now it's suggesting I watch an animated singing banana!

And on and on it goes...

In this manner I was soon introduced to the Potter Puppet Pals. (They are really quite clever!) What's great about these puppets is their simplicity. Each puppet has the same head, body and arms... the only differences are their faces and hair. Thus I was inspired to create my own little puppet pals!

I started with a spoon.

I was able to get a package of 4 large plastic serving spoons at the dollar store and I traced one of them to give me the pattern for the puppet head. Based on that I drew up an ear pattern:

I found that it was easiest to trace the pattern onto the fabric and then sew directly on the line. That way I didn't have to worry about adding a seam allowance! After clipping the curved edge, I simply turned it right side out and added a little bit of stuffing. Then came sewing the ears onto the head:

After tracing the head pattern on fabric I pinned the ears so that they were facing in towards the center of the face. Like before I sewed along the pattern line stopping a little after the second ear to give room for insterting the spoon. After trimming, clipping and turning I had a head!

A little stuffing around the spoon and a few stitches gave me a great shape! I later hot glued the raw edges of the "neck" to the spoon just to be sure it wouldn't move. Now onto the sleeves and arms!

After folding them in half, all that the sleeves needed was a simple seam up the side. I made them out of fleece so that I wouldn't have to worry about hemming edges! I sewed up the arms just like I did with the ears (trace, stitch, clip, turn and stuff) and then sewed them directly onto the sleeves before I turned the sleeves right side out.

I had to be sure to sew through only one layer of the sleeve material. Then with a quick flip the arms were sleeved and done! I then pinned the arms so that the very top of the sleeves were at the top of the puppet body.

I folded the collar in half and pinned that over the sleeves along the neckline. I then sewed everything together with one seam!

I then folded the body in half with the arms on the inside and sewed up one side to finish it. Once it was turned right-side out I just slipped the spoon head through the neck of the body and stitched it in place.